


Never Let Go

by Beguile



Series: The *other* Sunshineverse(s) [8]
Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Aliens, Alternate Universe - Alien Invasion, Alternate Universe - Biological Warfare, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Apocalypse, Gore, Neurological Disorders, Post-Apocalypse, Stick is still an asshole though, Sunshineverse, Survival, Terminal Illnesses, Violence, feral!Matt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-04
Updated: 2016-11-16
Packaged: 2018-07-20 00:27:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7383607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beguile/pseuds/Beguile
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stick returns to a ravaged New York and encounters a peculiar feral.  (Plays in the same universe as MomentumDeferred’s story <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/4217547/chapters/9534300">Sunshine.</a>)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MomentumDeferred](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MomentumDeferred/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Sunshine](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4217547) by [MomentumDeferred](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MomentumDeferred/pseuds/MomentumDeferred). 



> Months ago, I asked [ Momentum Deferred](http://archiveofourown.org/users/MomentumDeferred/pseuds/MomentumDeferred) (a.k.a. Ash) for the privilege of writing Stick into the masterfully rendered universe of [Sunshine.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4217547/chapters/9534300) I was stunned when Ash not only granted me permission to play in the –verse but actively supported my efforts. I only hope that this fic is a worthy addition to the collection. 
> 
> I need to thank Ash for beta-ing this and whipping it into shape prior to posting. Make sure to check out Ash’s [SunshineVerse Tumblr](http://sunshineverse.tumblr.com/) as well as tj_teejay’s [Half-Feral Tumblr](http://half-feral.tumblr.com/) for more!
> 
>  **Timeframe:** Shortly after Matt plateaus and the apartment is destroyed (re. Sunshine Chapter 3).

* * *

 

 

Not the shitstorm Stick was expecting, but it was the shitstorm they got: an unwinnable combination of combustion, environmental catastrophe, and invasion.  Obliterated the Chaste, the Hand, and everyone in between, so there’s no more war to worry about.  No more soldiers to train.  There are factions of semi-capable survivors battling for whatever strongholds they can squat in; hoards of aliens roving the underground, emerging when they can to do whatever the fuck aliens do.  And then there’s the infected, those sick, rotting ferals creeping through the streets.  They come in clouds of unwashed stink, the faint scent of their brains melting buried under body soil.  None of which amounts to an ultimate showdown of good vs. evil, but Stick notes that the bloodshed remains more or less consistent on his end.  The more things change, the more they stay exactly the same.

* * *

 

New York City has become what he always suspected it ought to, what silk sheets and skyscrapers sought to hide for so many years.  First time ever Stick can say he doesn’t hate the place.  Manhattan levelled to jagged stacks of cinders surrounded by an oily moat, baking under a sun that feels all wrong on Stick’s scarred face.  Half his skin registers the unnatural heat and alien ozone; the other can’t feel a thing.  Not the heat, not the wind.  Like someone slapped a piece of plastic in place of skin.  God damn scar tissue.  Least his ears, nose, and mouth still work. 

            He strafes through the rubble, cane tapping against the rotting earth.  Yep, he’s still carrying the fucking cane.  Geography is hard to measure with the new climate, and there’s some things his senses haven’t adjusted to: gauging distance or depth amidst the ruined cityscape; open holes in the earth carved by those alien fuckers on their way in and out of the sewers; safe footholds or other fighting grounds on decrepit buildings.  Besides, the cane is great for ferals, whose infected blood is libel to infect him if he slashes them open with the katana.  Better to use blunt-force trauma with them.  His sword likes the taste of alien blood more anyways. 

            The cane staggers over a crumbling founding, and the _ratatat tat_ of metal on the brickwork combined with the shadow crossing his good cheek tells Stick where he is.  How fitting for Hell’s Kitchen to be in cinders when he returns.  The neighbourhood is under new management, a small pack of ferals by the sounds of things, far enough away that they don’t converge on Stick’s location.  He folds up his cane to keep it that way.  Much as he likes putting ferals out of their misery, Stick isn’t looking to stay long.  He walks the rest of the way without tapping, stopping only when muscle memory tells him to. 

            He places a hand against the brick of the old apartment building.  A stupid gesture.  A pointless gesture.  More muscle memory, Stick supposes, craning his neck towards the roof in foolish anticipation of movement.  He filters through the post-apocalyptic clamour: the hush of elements – air, water, earth; the crackle of heat on stone; the trickle of erosion; biological functions (stomachs growling, people crying, hearts pounding, lungs pumping…).  There’s footsteps and fighting.  The snap of a bowstring far off, an engine roaring to life.  Those fucking aliens roving underfoot, biding their time till their polluted sun disappears.  Ferals, hoards of them, squabbling mindlessly.  The neighbourhood is not a silent place, but it is, from what Stick can hear, devoid of human life.  Those that didn’t burn to death in the initial attack must have fled, because the smell of death, while everywhere, isn’t fresh. 

            Stick lowers his hand, huffing, momentarily not caring if the ferals hear him.  There’s a heartbeat that ought to be there, and its absence resonates in Stick’s ears. 

            A scream cuts through his meditation.  Stick whips around, snapping his cane to full length and ripping his katana from its sheath, but he is alone on the street.  The scream has carried from a few blocks south of his position.  Fucking geography.  Stick kicks the wall of the apartment building he’s been groping like it’s the problem. 

            The screaming twists through the butchered buildings, chased by the growls and shouts of ferals.  Stick doesn’t recognize the voice.  Some dumb survivor who got themselves out of the frying pan only to fall into the fire.  Footsteps follow, drawing nearer and nearer to his position until they skid to a halt around the next corner.  The emptiness of the apartment behind him gets louder and louder with every passing second, an absent heartbeat amplifying the terrified sounds of human panic as the ferals attack. 

            “Do something,” the voice in his head urges, but there’s no weight to the words, no accompanying presence.  Can’t be a pain in the ass when you’re dead. 

            Stick sheathes his sword.  Refolds his cane.  The smell of fresh death returns to Hell’s Kitchen, and he bids good riddance to the dearly departed, the band of killers, the empty apartment, the whole God damn world.  He walks away from the merry sounds of dismemberment, the sounds of a city he can be proud of.  This is survival of the fittest, but the words don’t mean much with the empty apartment looming behind him. 

* * *

 

            Night comes.  Stick lies in wait.  The little aliens, the babies, he can handle with a few quick cuts, but the adults are made of tougher material.  He only ever challenged one, and the fucker slashed out half his mug including his worthless left eye.  Stick almost threw the other at the bastard out of spite before laying into that soft spot between the plates of exoskeleton.  Took him weeks to get the taste of extraterrestrial entrails out of his skin and hair. 

            In the morning, he’ll head north.  No point in sticking around the city.  Stick can hear small pockets of humanity, but they are small, fading, like every city he’s been to before and every city he’s going to be in after.  Until finally, one by one, all those heartbeats die out, because if the aliens don’t get ya, starvation and sickness will.

            Stick wonders, briefly, what got the kid: the fire seems the most likely – or at least the most likeable.  The only way an alien, starvation, or sickness was going to get him is if somebody else was slowing him down, and fuck if that doesn’t sound exactly like Matt Murdock.  Oh, please let it have been the fire. 

 

* * *

 

            He’s being followed. 

            Not by the pack: they’re a few blocks away squabbling over rotting meat.  No, Stick’s being tailed by one of their outcasts.  Squirrelly fucker, mauled to shit, who smells of powder burns, scrapes, and bruises.  Warnings from the pack that _it_ isn’t welcome, it isn’t one of them.  Stick would have to agree.  This feral is quieter than the others.  Faster too, if uncoordinated.  Its trembling shakes through the park, giving away its position and unveiling the surroundings. 

            Stick slips into hiding around what used to be a tree, drawing his cane tightly against his chest.  The snuffing, shuffling form behind him breaks cover by dropping off a low-hanging tree branch into a clumsy landing.  Stick almost takes advantage, but he’s bored by the prospect of such an easy victory.  This feral is learning some new tricks, no easy feat with a body so ravaged.  There’s little sport in beating the feral up when it’s already down. 

            It takes the feral long enough to rise between its injuries, gravity, that God damn tremor, and its searching for Stick.  The damn thing’s body gets to a full 10.0 on the Richter scale to compensate for everything, wobbling from leg to leg before suddenly honing in on its prey.  Stick feels a rush of breath, hot and rank, split around his hiding place.  The feral’s on a straight shot for him, and Stick knows he didn’t make a sound. 

            “That’s not bad for someone who can’t stand still,” he says, twisting his hands on his cane in anticipation.  “Let’s see what else you can do.”  
            Stick snaps the cane to his right.  The feral charges too quickly, eager to prove itself.  Maybe show the pack it’s worthy of membership.  Unfortunately, this feral’s picked the wrong alpha to fuck with.  Stick rotates around his hiding spot, slamming his cane into the feral’s back.  The feral lands face-first, knees second. 

            It hops back to its feet but is overcompensating again.  Stick can hear the muscles tensing in the feral’s wiry frame, listing away from an unstable left side.  The action lands it back on the ground.  Its right arm flails for purchase while the left jiggles.  This time, Stick presses his advantage.  He slams his cane down twice in quick succession over the inner elbow on the feral’s trusted arm, striking the nerve.  The feral stops snarling, whining instead, first in pain, and then, when its melted brain registers what’s happened, from the tingling in its hand and forearm.  It abandons the fight with Stick for a fight with its limb, chopping at the earth with its right arm while the left continues shaking. 

            Stick lines up for a headshot; he doesn’t take it.  Not immediately anyway.  The feral’s sounds stop him.  Whining with every inhale and snarling with every exhale: it’s familiar.  Matty’s ghost come to haunt him for doing nothing as that human was slaughtered yesterday.  Stick huffs, and God damn it, the feral’s smell reminds him of Matt too.  He lowers his arm and takes a cautionary step away from the struggling feral, refocusing.  Matt Murdock is dead, and this fucker is part of the new world that killed him, and Stick is not upset.  He’s justified.  This is a righteous, merciful death, and if Matt really wanted to stop him, well, he should have survived the firestorm. 

            Stick winds up again, but the ghost of Matt Murdock isn’t finished fucking with him yet.  His foolish hesitation gave the feral an opportunity to get back on his feet.  Clumsy as it is, there’s strength behind the feral’s movements.  It absorbs the blows from Stick’s cane, and when it finally lands a kick, brings Stick to his knees. 

            The feral doesn’t get the chance to land another.  Stick makes certain.  He whips the cane from every direction, taking aim for the old wounds.  He stabs at the feral’s injuries, eliciting new whimpers.  The bites on its arms, the bruises on its abdomen, the burn – Stick sniffs it out, a puss-pocket bubbling under the feral’s eye.  The air grows thick with blood, tears, and fuck, every drop smells like Matt.  The feral is holy communion transubstantiating.  This is Matt’s body, which has been given up for you. 

            Stick finally lands the headshot he’s been craving, and he doesn’t let up.  He holds the cane against the feral’s scalp and pushes, pushes until the shaking, whimpering thing with Matt’s voice and Matt’s smell, Matt’s size and Matt’s shape, is on its knees.  Stick rises slowly to his full height, pressing the tip of the cane into the feral’s head as a warning.  But the fight is over by the sounds of things.  The snarling has subsided, replaced with sniveling and whining.  It couldn’t cut it against the pack, it’s now lost to a human, and something in its sounds tell Stick that it doesn’t even know why this is happening.  This feral has no idea what it’s doing or who it’s with or, worse, why it can’t provide an answer to all its questions. 

            The feral huddles in on itself, a little boy lost: in the park, in body, in mind, and the effect makes the damn thing all the more Matt-like. 

            “Fuck,” Stick grumbles, folding up his cane.  The feral stiffens defensively, whimpering louder.  It tries to bury his face in its hands only to hit the infected burn under its eye.  It wails in horror and confusion, cowering into a smaller, shakier ball. 

            Stick sniffs a few times, wets his lips to taste the air.  This isn’t usual.  Ferals don’t go down without a fight.  The outcasts especially since they’re so desperate to prove themselves.  This one’s been sick a while, long enough that it should be out of its mind, but it’s not.  Not completely.  There’s a human in there fighting, aware enough to ask questions but not to provide answers. 

            Stick sighs, drawing his katana.  The ghost of Matty wins this round.  “I’ll put you out of your fucking misery- - nicely, alright?”

            The feral stiffens when the blade is exposed.  It shuffles backwards, away, head held low to make a killing strike difficult.   “You’re pretty smart for a zombie,” Stick notes, giving credit where credit is due.  He advances, “But smart’s not gonna save you.  Not from me.  Not from that virus cooking your brain.” He grabs a handful of the feral’s hair and tilts its head back.  The feral growls pleadingly, fighting with the last of its strength.  Elbows, fingernails, feet, legs: Stick forces his way through them, bringing the blade to rest against the feral’s neck.

            God damn it, it smells like Matt: _exactly_ like Matt.  Sounds like Matt too.  The blade dips along with Stick’s resolve.  He lets the weight of the feral’s hands sink into his chest as they ball up around his shirt.  Not to kill him, no, to restrain him, and the grip is terrifyingly familiar.  Stick has been restrained by these hands before. 

            “Try and bite me, I kill you,” Stick doesn’t wait for confirmation.  He shoves a leg against the back of the feral’s head, digs his blade into the feral’s neck, and reaches a hand to the feral’s face.  He finds the muscles are tense under his hand.  The feral’s lips are screwed up tight.  It breathes raggedly through its nose.

            Stick pats the feral on the cheek, “Good.  That’s good.”  He swipes his fingers over the feral’s nose, brows, forehead.  He gets a good whiff of the infected burn wound, of the tears drying on dirty cheeks, of oily hair and mangy beard, and Stick realizes this isn’t guilt or regret.  He’s not projecting Matt into the moment.  The kid is already here. 

            He lowers his katana.  The feral sucks a desperate breath of air.  Stick rubs the feral’s head soothingly.

            “Hello, Matty.” 

            Matt bursts into fresh tears.   

 

* * *

Happy reading!

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stick returns to a ravaged New York and encounters a peculiar feral. (Plays in the same universe as MomentumDeferred’s story [Sunshine.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4217547/chapters/9534300))

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A huge thanks to Ash for beta-ing this chapter and an even bigger thanks to her for editing the last one on her phone. The scatterbrain that I am forgot to put that in my notes. 
> 
> I originally posted that this fic would be three chapters, because I consistently underestimate how long it takes me to get from one point to the next. This fic is likely going to be five chapters before all is said and done. 
> 
> Thank you, Readers, for all the support and enthusiasm on the first chapter of this fic! I go on and on about how excited I am to be writing in the SS-verse, and I’m thrilled to receive such amazing feedback. 
> 
> Make sure to check out Ash’s [SunshineVerse Tumblr](http://sunshineverse.tumblr.com/) as well as tj_teejay’s [Half-Feral Tumblr](http://half-feral.tumblr.com/) for more!
> 
> Timeframe: Shortly after Matt plateaus and the apartment is destroyed (re. Sunshine Chapter 3).

* * *

-Two- 

They take a while, both of them.  Matt gets lost in his sobs, and Stick gets lost in his indecision.  He doesn’t re-sheath his katana; he rests the blade over his legs as he sits, listening to the animal cries of his mind-fucked former student while contemplating his course of action. 

            “You talk?” he asks. 

            Matt tosses his head around.  A low rumbling emerges from his throat.  Stick takes that as a no.   

            “You remember me?”  
  
            Some more head tossing, more coordinated this time.  The rumbling is non-verbal as ever.  _No_ , the kid’s trying to say, but Stick’s not convinced that’s entirely true.  Matt seems to remember enough of Stick not to kill him outright, to cry when Stick spoke his name.  He obviously carries some of his training even if he can’t articulate it.  Entirely possible that he carries Stick in the same way, buried deep where the virus can’t touch.   

            Stick hums in approval, “You catch on to things, learn them.  Not like those others.  Must be more of those gifts, Matty.  Hell if you have been using them though.  Smells like they got the jump on you a bunch of times.”

            Matt’s frustration flares with a sudden spike in his temperature.  He growls nonsensically through an explanation Stick is glad he can’t understand.  “You’re dying, Matty,” Stick interrupts, and the kid’s growling lowers into a dejected hum, the feral equivalent of, “I know you are, but what am I?”  Stick scoffs.  Evidently the virus hasn’t started in on the attitude centers of Matt’s brain, or maybe they’re all that’s left.  He can’t talk, but he can give lip.  Jesus Christ… “You’re dying in one of the worst ways I can imagine for a warrior. Now I can let that happen slowly, I can make it happen quickly, or-“ Matt shifts closer to him and releases an almost inaudible snarl.  He likes the possibilities that come with ‘or’ far more than Stick’s offer to end him quickly.  “-Or, I can show you how to rip those fucking aliens and ferals to pieces, so you can take a ton of them with you when you go.”  
  
            The snarl grows in a low growl of approval.  Stick finally shoves his katana back into its sheath. 

            “First, we gotta fix that fucking face of yours,” he says, rising.

            Matt has no idea what Stick’s talking about.  He proves this by reaching up to prod the burn on his cheek, filling the air with infection-stink and his own pathetic whining.  Stick swats his hand away and receives a petulant grumble for his efforts. 

            “You’re not going to make this easy, are you?”

            The kid answers him by reaching for his burn again.  Stick sighs and lets him, absorbing the dumbfounded, desperate vocalizations that follow.  “The more things change…” Stick unfolds his cane and heads out of the park for cover.  The kid stays, poking and whining, master of his own misery.

            Stick orders him, “C’mon.”  They can’t stay here, not with everything they have to do.  Matt needs a clean place for his face to heal, and Stick would rather not spend a night outdoors. 

            Matt’s whimpers grow even more frantic.  “Stop touching that burn of yours,” Stick chastises, but when he focuses, the space isn’t gesticulating from the kid’s prodding.  There’s the slash of Matt’s tremor in the air along with the ripples of his anxiety instead.  Stick listens, wondering if there’s someone around he missed.  They’re in the clear, two heartbeats at the end of things.  Kid’s making a fuss about nothing. 

            “Let’s go,” Stick orders, and resumes walking.  He still isn’t being followed.  Matt stays there, shaking like a leaf, whimpering desperately in lieu of words he can’t speak.  His head starts to tic once, twice, three times to the side.  The way his heartbeat climbs makes Stick think the kid is stroking out. 

            That is, until he follows the head tic and notices it points towards the pack of ferals in the distance, the ones who claimed the territory Matt’s been squatting in.  The ones who beat him, cast him out, but if there’s one thing Matt always wanted it was somewhere to belong.  A pack.  Trust the virus to exacerbate that drive.

            Funny, then, that these ones want nothing to do with him.  He’s certainly submissive enough when beaten.  Eager to please, to take commands.  But Matty has an edge beneath all that.  His potential is evident, always has been, and if blind, old Stick senses it, the brain-broiled ferals must too.  They know Matt’s not really one of them, and the alpha probably knows it better than the others.

            And if the alpha doesn’t, well, it will soon enough. 

            Stick assures Matt, “Nothing left for you here, kid, not yet.  You’ll come back when you’re ready.”  Matt’s feet scuffle against the cracked earth.  He whines, torn, body darting in the direction of the pack that denied him.  It’s wolf mentality on steroids to Stick, who taps Matt’s leg with his cane.  He appeals in terms the virus understands, “You want to go back and serve an alpha, or you want to be the alpha?”

            Matt grunts – “be” – and then whines – “serve”.  He’s torn between instinct and infection, and Stick honestly isn’t sure what will win. 

            He serves the ultimatum by resuming his slow walk away, “Choice is yours.”  For several long moments, Stick’s are the only footsteps that can be heard under Matt’s desperate whimpering, but then a clumsy shuffle charges in his wake.  The kid falls into step behind him. 

            He’s chosen a new alpha to follow. 

            For now. 

* * *

 

            They hole up in the unit above a former auto repair shop.  The metal doors on the ground floor are reinforced, car-proofed, so they have some insurance of time while they work.  Ferals aren’t getting through there.  Aliens, sure, but they’d hear those fuckers coming well before the doors get torn down. 

            Stick likes the sound of the shop, the drafty hollows in the rafters and hideaways scattered throughout the space.  They’ve got shelving units for scaling.  Loads of nooks and crannies to scout out.  The echoes will be an exercise in concentration for Matt, who whines when they leave the vast outdoors for an enclosed space.  Even an area as large as the shop is a transition his senses aren’t ready to make.  Too many new sounds, none of them natural: Stick ushers him upstairs before he can have a meltdown. 

            The flat above is dust-filled and stale, but there’s a couch that’s still plush, which Matty drops onto like a sack of bricks.  His whining stops.  His motion arrests save for his left arm, though the tremor seems to be drowsing.  Stick huffs in disbelief.  The kid’s respiration went from awake to sleeping in a fucking second.  When he’s poked with a cane, all he does is roll away. 

            Stick stops Matt from burrowing into the crevice.  His infected face does not need more shit packed into it.  Thankfully, he abandons that quest in order to wrap his whole body around Stick, shivering into the older man like it’s not a million fucking degrees outside.  He stills again, a human-sized lump of concrete hardening around Stick’s back and thighs.  “Jesus Christ,” Stick curses.  As if the kid’s clinginess wasn’t bad enough before zombification.  As if his neediness survived what his ability to talk didn’t.  Stick draws on strength against repulsion, remembering with uncomfortable clarity that this is why he leaves Matt.  This.  Matt’s crazy need to have and hold and never let go.

            Then again, he isn’t Matt, not anymore.  Ferals are pack animals.  They’re baser instincts in a meat suit.  He’s cold, so he seeks warmth.  Tired so he sleeps.  Lonely so he seeks proximity.  Hell, Stick feels him adjusting so his ear is pressed tight against the old man’s leg, collecting heartbeats.  He can’t know that needing Stick is a problem.  He’s been reworked into a pack animal, and Stick is a member of the pack.

            Stick bears that in mind as he stays on the couch, unpacking his satchel, amassing a small stack of remedies for the kid’s numerous wounds.  They’re a pack.  An army.  The old Matty couldn’t understand, but the new Matty understands nothing else. 

* * *

 

            Matt’s sleeping arrangements do make it easy to tend to his face wound.   He bares his infected cheek to Stick, the heady smell of puss making for a perfect addition to their new digs.  A rag damped with vodka helps clear that out.  Stick measures the burn by touch, trying to identify the source.  The burn is a long strip as if a shot of pure fire cut across his cheek.  Not the work of a feral.  A human did this.  Maybe Matt was stalking them in the trees like he had Stick, or maybe they were stalking Matt, the newborn feral.  Either way, they had to have been close for the burn to be this deep, and boy, oh, boy, does their aim suck.  Missed the kid’s brain by a mile.    

            The prodding becomes too much.  Matt moans in his sleep and twists his face into the couch cushion to escape.  Stick grabs his chin, holds him, and scrubs.  The moaning picks up.  Matt’s pulse climbs.  He tosses and shuffles, but he doesn’t stir.  He’s too damn tired to stir.

            Stick moves to treat the other injuries: bites and scratches from other ferals, Matt’s chipped nails and battered knuckles from fighting back.  He palpates for broken bones and finds none.  Lots of bruises, identified less by the tenderness of the skin than by the weak yelps Matt elicits when Stick pushes on them.  There’s a bump on his head, mending.  Not likely the work of a feral, so maybe the same idiot who fucked up shooting Matt in the face also fucked up hitting him in the head. 

            An old, circular scar on his left elbow gives Stick pause.  It feels like a bite wound, one long since healed, but that doesn’t fit with Matt’s current state.  He’s clearly a young feral, newly turned. 

            Irrelevant.  For now.  “More gifts, Matty,” Stick cleans up his first aid supplies.  He draws a coil of rope from his bag and places a restraining hand on Matt’s right arm.  The trembling left arm flops lazily on the couch.  “Let’s see if we can’t teach you a few more.” 

* * *

 

            Nearly a full day passes before the kid starts waking.  Stick listens, bracing himself, cane across his lap.  The lazy animal sounds give way to confused gasps, and then the couch is screeching under the weight of a grown man hurling himself into the cushions.  He digs his shoulder down on one side and kicks up a storm with the other, flooding the apartment with motion.  Matt growls, he moans, he tosses, and Stick doesn’t speak until the kid’s whines are stretched thin in the air between them.  “Rise and shine, Matty.”  
  
            Matt doesn’t have to use words for Stick to know he’s being sworn at, threatened.  The kid roars several times with increasing ferocity. 

“You want that rope off?  Why don’t you come over here, make me untie you.” Stick can tell he’s been understood by the way Matt’s voice cracks.  By the way his heart slows dejectedly even as his motions increase.  He’s showing off. 

            Stick calls his bluff, “Come on, Matty: I dare yah.  Make me untie you.  If you can.”  
  
            The tantrum slows.  Stick waits for the rush of air against his face signalling the charge of a very pissed off feral, but Matt is too good for that.  He simply rises on the couch and settles into a crouched position.  His balance is shot though, what with his right arm roped tightly behind his back.  He relies too heavily on it to compensate for his left, something Stick hopes to un-teach him as quickly as possible.  For now, Matt’s at the mercy of a limb he hasn’t made peace with, sent swaying every time his left arm twitches.  His heart leaps in surprise as if it, too, isn’t expecting the infected limb to do what it has obviously been doing for a while. 

            Matt plays it absolutely cool on the outside.  He locks his legs, straining not to sway, and squares off with Stick.  It’s master vs. apprentice in a vicious match of who can give fewer fucks, and he intends to win.  Stick smirks proudly: that’s the Spartan spirit, Matty, but spirit counts for shit when you can’t fight. 

            My but the kid can struggle though.  He can toss and turn and flip and yell, all of which he does after scant seconds of self-control.  None of it’s a cry for help: never is with Matt.  This is more of an outpouring.  He’s performing an enraged rendition of the little engine that could – _I think I can, I think I can, I think I can_ – that inevitably derails, crashes, and burns thanks to Matt’s other weakness.  He really, truly thinks he can’t. 

            “You want your arm back?” Stick offers, growing bored.

            More dust fills the air.  Matt’s coiling up, preparing for another assault.  He throws himself hard against the arm of the couch and gnashes his teeth.  “Oh, you’re not…” Stick grumbles, because yes, Matt is.  Matt fucking is.  The old man swats his cane at Matt’s cheek, “You can’t chew your God damn arm off.  It’s the only one you’ve got that works.”

            Matt snarls in a way that roughly translates to, “Don’t tie my arm down and I won’t have to chew it off,” before going back to gnawing on his shoulder.  Stick swats him repeatedly before shoving the tip of his cane into Matt’s infected burn.  He doesn’t stop shoving until the tears start up.

“Don’t chew your fucking arm off.  You want those ropes gone, Matty?”  Wet sniffling is as good an answer as any.  “You learn.  You figure out how to use your left arm, I give you back the right one.”  Matt whimpers an argument; Stick ignores him, “You can’t fight those ferals when you’re fighting yourself.  Figure that arm out, you get the other one back.” 

            Huffing, thick with snot and saliva, but at least it’s not muffled by a piece of shoulder he’s failing to eat.  Stick takes Matt’s breathing as acquiescence.  “Got lots to do,” he comments, “but first, you need to eat.”  
  
            And just like that, it’s like he never tied the kid’s arm behind his back in the first place.  Matt’s heartbeat does a jig in his chest.  He leaps off the couch towards Stick, who can’t defend himself from being caught.  “Lemme go,” he shimmies out easily.  Shittiest hold ever: why the fuck did Matt think wrapping his trembling arm around Stick would work?  The kid didn’t brace a grip on Stick’s neck or anything.  It’s less a hold and more of a…

            Oh, Stick sighs: it’s not a hold, it’s a hug. 

“Fuck.” 

 

* * *

 

Happy reading!

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Summary: Stick returns to a ravaged New York and encounters a peculiar feral. (Plays in the same universe as MomentumDeferred’s story [Sunshine.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4217547/chapters/9534300))  
> Author’s Notes: A grateful shout-out to Ash who edited this chapter late last night and continued to edit the short passages of corrections I sent her today. Thank you!  
> And thanks to you, Readers, who make this awesome experience of writing in SS-verse so much sweeter with your kind support. Please, enjoy!  
> Make sure to check out Ash’s [SunshineVerse Tumblr](http://sunshineverse.tumblr.com/) as well as tj_teejay’s [Half-Feral Tumblr](http://half-feral.tumblr.com/) for more!  
> Timeframe: Shortly after Matt plateaus and the apartment is destroyed (re. Sunshine Chapter 3).

 

* * *

 

-Three-

 

Matt’s excitement for food gives Stick a better idea of what he’s working with.  He knocks the protein bar out of Stick’s hand using his right shoulder, pins the bar to the floor with his foot, and then dives at it, face-first, like a bird of prey.  His left arm tosses at his side, irrelevant.  The limb doesn’t work properly, so the kid doesn’t use it at all.  He tries working his right arm against the rope, but there’s no way he can escape.  Stick tied one end of the rope tightly to Matt’s wrist.  He looped the remaining length twice around Matt’s torso and bicep, completely immobilizing the limb. 

            When it’s clear he isn’t going to break the bonds, Matt gives up.  He pecks at the protein bar with the airs of a disgruntled chicken. 

            Stick swats him with his cane for so many reasons, chief at the time being, “Don’t eat the damn wrapper.”  
            Matt already has a piece in his mouth.  The mix of feral saliva and plastic makes for an interesting smell, one that grows stronger the more he works the wrapper between his teeth.       Stick raps him again, more firmly this time, and Matt huffs, dejected.  Apparently, he thought Stick would forget about the wrapper if he just stood there.  Well, okay, then: orders received.  Matt spits the entire contents of his mouth onto the floor. 

            When the kid tries to make another dive for the protein bar, Stick brings the cane to rest against his face.  “You use your damn hand,” he says, leaving what he thinks is little room for loopholes.  He’s pleased when Matt drags his foot off the protein bar and puts his left arm to use.

            It’s a slow process.  The air is flurried with frustration, involuntary movement; Matt’s breath coming in sharp gasps and growls.  His fingers grasp and then his arm pulls away.  His arm moves into position and his hand bounces aside.  He mewls, growing emotional.  Food is there, right there, and he wants it, and why isn’t Stick helping him?  Why is he all alone in this? 

            “Go on and get it, Matty,” Stick says, reminding the kid that he isn’t alone.  He isn’t being punished; he’s being helped. “I know you can.  Go on.”

            Matt nabs the bar by pure dumb luck and persistence.  What the hell else does Matt Murdock have going for him?  “Good,” Stick tells him, hunkering down for the next big wait.  Matt still has to eat the damn thing. 

            The air churns with wild movement.  It takes Stick a moment to get a read on things when Matt finally stops, and he’s surprised that the kid is pecking at the floor again.  He leans forward, listening to the blood pumping through Matt’s contorted frame.  Matt has his left wrist pinned under his foot this time.  His left hand is on the floor, protein bar poised and steady as he leans his mouth down to eat.  The rest of his arm continues jerking up and down, bent and straight, knocking him slightly off balance, but his heartbeat is a proud declaration of independence.  Of not so much having followed orders but found a way of disobeying them and getting what he wants in the process. 

            Typical Matt. 

            Stick is almost too exasperated to use the cane again.  Almost.  He knocks at Matt’s knee, causing his twitching hand to fly loose, the protein bar to hit the ground, and the kid to curse at him in a series of growls.  His final flourish is a pathetic whine.  “You eat properly or you don’t eat,” Stick says angrily.  The kid can’t fight without the motor control to pick something up. 

            He can’t figure that out though.  Whatever propensity for self-reflection Matt used to have, the drive to criticize his actions (too fucking much, in Stick’s opinion), was all gone.  He lives in the here and now, the hungry and the desperate.  He throws himself at the floor when the food escapes his grasp, trying to catch it in his mouth.  Stick heaves him back into a kneeling position.

            “Matty?  You’re going to listen.  Not to me: you’re going to listen to that left arm of yours.  This one.  You feel it?” Stick grips him by the wrist and shakes, alerting Matt to the arm’s presence before letting go.  “I want you to take a minute – no, no, stop moving.  Stop moving or I’ll bind your legs too.” 

            Matt freezes on the spot save for his left arm.  Stick pats him on the shoulder: _good boy_.  “You can’t stop your arm from moving.”  Matt whimpers, breaking from the unfairness of it all.  He knows, on some level, that this isn’t right.  His arm didn’t always do this, and he is trying, he is trying so hard to make it stop.  He wants it to stop.  It should stop.  Stick shakes him out of the pout, “This is how your arm is now.  You can’t control it, but you can control how you react to it.  Focus on your arm.  Focus on what the muscles are doing, how they’re contracting.  You feel it?  You feel it, Matty?” 

            The kid’s stuck in his funk.  He’s unable to contain the huffs and grunts with his breathing, but he gradually stops swaying like he did on the couch.  His arm flops, and Matt reacts, accommodating.  Stick releases him slowly.  By the time the old man’s hands are off him, Matt’s respiration comes in quick, determined bursts.  His arm twitches on the carpet, and he is a stone in response.  

            Stick shoves the protein bar back in front of him.  Matt moves his trembling arm over the carpet and gets his hand squarely over top of it.  He waits until his hand isn’t leaping to draw the protein bar into a fist. 

            He joyfully lifts the food to his mouth and ends up punching himself in his burn wound.  Mucous and whimpering flood the apartment.  Matt hurls the protein bar back on the floor and stomps on it, because obviously the bar’s to blame.  He then leaps back to the couch to snarl. 

            Stick sighs, “Well, it was a good start.” 

* * *

                         Matt finally eats the protein bar.  Stick telling him it’s the only breakfast he’s getting spurs him to make another go for it.  He bounds off the couch in what Stick thinks will be a face-first dive onto the meal, but Matt surprises him by employing some degree of patience in the process.  Some.  Enough that he takes hold of the bar and doesn’t stab himself in the face with it again.  The fact that this constitutes progress strikes Stick as fucking hilarious.  They used to celebrate when Matty scored a hit or dodged a blow.  Now, his feeding himself is a God damned miracle.  Praise Jesus, Hallelujah. 

            Stick decides against performing the same exercise for drinking.  He holds the canteen while Matt sips from it.  Water is too precious for them to waste on Matt’s shitty coordination, or at least that’s what Stick tells himself as he helps the kid drink.  He scrubs off the lip of the canteen with some alcohol afterwards, unable to afford being too careful when sharing shit with a walking, talking communicable virus. 

             They go down to the shop.  Stick traces the contours of one of the bays with his cane.  He shoves empty oil cans out of the way and shakes the rack, bench, and shelving unit to make sure they will hold Matt’s weight.  He isn’t one for leaping around, but the kid had a propensity for spider-antics back in the day.  Some of that might have survived his viral lobotomy.  The last thing Stick wants is another repeat of breakfast, of Matt failing at something and making like a five-year-old about it. 

            Stick sets his cane on the desk.  He works his way into the centre of the space.  Matt stands at the edge, waiting.  For what, Stick takes a moment to fully realize.  It’s for orders.  Matt’s waiting for orders.  He hasn’t waited for orders since he was a boy.  

            Stick obliges him, “Attack me.”

            Matt scuffles backwards.  He makes a funny sound, a mix of a growl and a whine.  The order offends him, offends him and confuses him.  Is this a test?  Because Matt is already tired of those.  Stick already tested him at breakfast, and Matt thinks they both know how crappy that was. 

            “Let’s see what you can do,” Stick urges him, causing Matt to take another cautionary step away.  “You scared?” Matt takes offence, growling pointedly.  He is not afraid of Stick.  He is not afraid of anything.  “Okay, then, attack me.”  
  
            Matt toes the floor pathetically.  His breathing catches in his throat, ruffling through the vocal chords.  When he opens his mouth, what emerges is a series of false starts for an explanation of half-garbled nonsense.  Harsh consonant sounds and misplaced vowels run amuck in the air between them.  And Matt’s heart charges into a furious rhythm like it did with his arm earlier.  He shuts his mouth up tight, forcing his feral growls through his nose.  He takes to gesturing with his flapping left arm and blunted right shoulder, and that makes less sense than his gibberish. 

            Stick can’t believe they’re still on this, “Jesus, Matty, would you just attack me already?” Matt shakes his head, a motion that fans Stick’s face from across the room.  “Is this because of your arm?”  Another head shake, an honest one too if Matt’s heart can be believed.  “You want to learn how to take down those feral fuckers, right?  This is the way you do it.” 

            Nothing.  Matt stops moving, stops vocalizing, and it’s very clear he’s declaring, “No.” 

            Stick shrugs, “Alright then: I’ll attack you.”

            He does.  Matt dodges the first volley, but he’s not coordinated enough to miss the second.  Stick catches his left arm and throws him to the ground.  He earns a frustrated growl in response.  “Make me stop, Matty,” he urges, launching into another attack.  Again, Matt’s first instinct is to evade.  He swoops under Stick’s blows, but he takes a kick to the upper chest that lands him back on the ground. 

            Tension plays through Matt’s bound arm.  The rope strains against his strength, holding.  His growl deepens.  Stick smirks: there’s that feral rage come out to play at last.  “Stay sharp,” he tells Matt before diving at the kid again. 

            Matt doesn’t need to be told.  He _is_ sharp.  Seems like his feral instincts aren’t the only things being activated.  His old training returns too, what with him tumbling out of Stick’s line of fire.  He takes to deflecting blows instead of eluding them, and for a few precious moments, the world never ended.  Matt is his un-feral self again, holding his own against his former mentor in a spar.

            Stick’s still a dick though, and Matt’s left arm is a fucking mess, so it doesn’t take long before the kid’s back on the ground.  A stash of empty oil cans and tools break his fall.  The garage swells with the smell of blood and bruises.  Whimpers trickle through the stacks.  Matt scrambles to right himself amidst the debris, and Stick listens carefully as his whines scrape through a transformation to a roar. 

            He almost catches Matt’s shoulder to his abdomen in a fairly well-executed tackle.  He deflects a series of blows between his head and chest from Matt’s flailing arm.  The punches have power backing them, and they’re more coordinated than they were in the park.  “Good work,” Stick tells him before ending the melee with a kick to Matt’s chin.  The kid slams into the concrete floor.  “But not quite good enough.”

            Roaring echoes into the recesses of the garage.  Stick recognizes the sound.  Game’s over.  The kid’s heart rate isn’t Matt anymore.  It’s the rampaging din of a pissed-off feral, and if Stick doesn’t stay sharp, he’s going to get lost in the noise.  As it stands, he misses the moment when Matt gets back to his feet and ends up being ploughed into the wall. 

            Matt’s head lobs toward his chest, and Stick realizes too late where this fight has been heading as the kid’s breath collects in a bull’s eye on his neck.  The old man gets an arm against Matt’s throat at the same time the kid realizes what’s happening.  What he’s trying to do, what the virus is compelling him to do. 

            And with that, Matt’s heart spirals out of its charge and into a frightened tizzy.  He launches back from Stick too fast to take stock of his surroundings.  His feet get tangled up in debris, landing him on his knees, scrambling with three disobedient limbs to get away from Stick as fast as possible.  He cries with wild and reckless abandon, blethering incessantly with desperate vocalizations because he does not want to be what he is. 

            “Get up,” Stick grumbles, having no time for this shit.  The sobs continue.  “Get up, Matty.  Come on: you didn’t go through with it.  You stopped yourself.  I felt it.  You felt it too.  That’s why it didn’t happen.”  He crosses the room, kicking shit out of his path, until he’s close to where Matt is huddled.  The kid tries to merge with the wall.  Stick takes hold of his quivering left bicep.  Matt tears himself out of Stick’s grasp and launches into a frantic pace of the area. 

            He huffs and puffs, gesturing this way and that.  His body language is as scattered as his spoken language, but Stick can piece together a gist.  “This is why you didn’t want to fight in the first place, huh, Matty?  You didn’t want to try and bite me.” 

            Matt’s nod sends a harsh chop of dust against Stick’s face.  The old man ignores the quiet klaxons going off in his head, the ones screaming about Matt’s attachment issues.  It’s probably for the best that Matt is concerned about biting him.  He’s an uninfected human.  He’s old, he’s malnourished, and he didn’t get doused in mystery chemicals as a kid.  Stick can’t see the virus fucking him up as advantageously as it has Matt.  That shit’s just going to eat him alive. 

            He rises but doesn’t try to approach Matt, who is putting distance between himself and the old master.  Stick holds out a hand for him to stop, “Biting is a useful instinct, Matt.  The things you’ll be fighting are already infected.  You can bite the shit out of them if you want.  But this is a good lesson: you only bite a human as a last resort.  And you are never going to need a last resort with me, Matty.  Promise.”

            A single nod cuts through the air.  Matt brushes the tears off his face, avoiding, for the first time, his burn.  “See?  You are learning,” Stick stretches his arms, preparing for another round.  “Now let’s try this again.  Attack me.”  
  
            Matt hesitates.  Stick groans, loosening his stance, “For the love of Christ, Matty…”  
  
            The punch catches him completely unaware.  He hears nothing – not the silent rush of Matt’s approach or the wind-up or the swing.  Stick’s ears ring instead with the crack of knuckle to bone.  He’s thrown hard to the right.  Blood shoots out from between his lips. 

            Had he the time to laugh, Stick would, but the fight is on. 

* * *

 

            They break for lunch, leaving only the smell of blunt force trauma behind.  Stick minds Matt on their way back upstairs.  He can hear the newfound engagement in the kid’s muscles.  His left shoulder reacts to the tremors instead of trying to control them, and there isn’t the same struggle to eat as there was for breakfast.  Matt still struggles, because one morning cannot hope to undo all the damage of the virus and, also, _it’s Matt_ , but Stick doesn’t have to talk him out of another tantrum. 

            In the afternoon, they work on spatial awareness and vantage points.  “Ferals like to stay on the ground.  You come at them on the ground, they overrun you.  Which is what they’ve been doing,” Stick waits for Matt to challenge him on that, but the kid stands at attention, a good little soldier.  He’s all fired up from the sparring this morning.  Whimpering about the ferals by the park isn’t going to put them in the ground.  Listening to Stick is. 

            Stick smirks, tapping at the shelves in the garage with his cane, “You come at ‘em from above, you can take them by surprise.  So…surprise me.”  
  
            He folds his cane and sidesteps into near silence.  No point in supressing his heartbeat: ferals certainly can’t.  Their respiration is cacophonous, loud and proud.  The only trick Matt will need to track them is being able to stay silent himself. 

            Which is going to be difficult.  Matt’s fight with a shelving unit isn’t merely audible, it’s booming.  His left arm causes the shelf to shake, rattling every object housed there.  He kicks to create footholds, knocking things to the ground.  Stick gives up trying to quiet his movements and uses the sound to cover his tracks.  He comes round to the side of the shelf opposite his protégé and stands there, ears ringing from all the noise.  Matt doesn’t notice, or if he does, he is too concerned with his one-armed scaling of the shelf to attack.

            So Stick attacks Matt instead: he stabs his cane through the shelving unit, landing a hit to Matt’s abdomen, and knocking the kid onto the floor.  Then he flits off before Matt can catch him.  “I said surprise me,” he challenges.  Matt scrambles after him in the wrong direction.  The acoustics of the room aren’t so friendly now that they’re not engaged in a melee.  Stick stalks after him, stabbing his cane through the shelves again, this time thwacking the backs of Matt’s knees.  “Not for me to surprise you.”

            He surprises Matt several more times – jabbing with his cane, his arm, his leg.  Unlike their fight in the morning, Matt never catches on.  His spends too much time fighting his body to scan the shelves for good footholds, and his efforts on the ground are sloppy.  He takes to charging down the aisles after the sound of footsteps only to have Stick knock him from behind.

            At one point, Stick lifts himself up onto the rack.  Matt comes the closest to finding him then, probably by tracking Stick’s heartbeat, but the kid is uncertain.  He makes the faintest of whines, shaking with uncertainty.  The tremor in his left arm causes him to knock the space beneath Stick’s feet.  Matt lets out a whimper.  He tucks the infernal limb against his chest and wills it to stop, wills everything to stop.  He’s had enough.  Exhaustion is locking his heart in a chokehold; his eyelids crash closed no matter how much he tries to hold them open.

            Stick reaches down from his place on the shelf.  He gently plants a hand on Matt’s head, running his fingers over the kid’s scalp.  His head is scalding.  Exertion has burned through his reserves.  Matt’s neck goes limp from the contact.  He sways on the spot, limbs loosening, like a puppet finally being lain down to rest.

            The puppeteer drops out of his hiding place.  “That’s good for today,” Stick half-expects the compliment to rejuvenate Matt, but the kid shuts down even faster.  His knees start to buckle.  Stick ushers him upstairs before he can drop.  “You did good, Matty.” 

            Matt doesn’t hear.  He’s asleep before he hits the couch.  Stick takes a minute to tend to him: vodka for his burn (the infection smells like it’s clearing up); cursory prodding for breaks.  Last but not least, Stick lays a hand over the back of Matt’s head to check his temperature.  The kid has already started to cool.

            Stick leaves his hand there for a long while.  Just to be sure. 

* * *

 

            They develop a routine, dividing their time between combat and strategy.  Stick ransacks the surrounding apartments for supplies while the kid sleeps.  He finds a stash of bottled water that Matt eventually learns how to drink by himself.  Food is harder.  The kid is a God damn bottomless pit, but they manage. 

            Matt’s fighting improves faster than his stealth.  His left arm continues to challenge him.  He might be perfectly silent only to have his tremor give him away.  Stick starts taking off the rope for short stretches, give him a break, but the kid is determined to learn.  Matt shoves the rope back at Stick and grunts until his right arm is restrained again. 

            Stick catches himself worrying if Matt’s being worked too hard, if he’s not capable of the kind of mastery the training demands.  It’s an odd feeling, one Stick’s never experienced, and one that isn’t quelled when he rouses from meditation one morning to find Matt gone.  His cane has vanished too.

            Seems odd for the kid to suddenly ditch on all their hard work.  They have been at this for days.  Listening carefully reveals a heartbeat downstairs in the garage, a tremulous rhythm.  Fearful?  Stick listens harder.  No, this is excited, mischievous; playful in the most predatory sense.

            Stick descends in absolute silence.  Tracking the heartbeat is harder on his way into the garage.  Their training has revealed good hiding spots, places where sound bounces to every corner of the room.  Matt has clearly settled into one such area, and he moves deftly into another.  Stick has to follow sound waves to their source to locate Matt, a task he can’t do with the kid roving.    

            He smiles.  He can’t fucking help himself, even when he’s jabbed in the ribs with his own cane. 

            Matt is off and running before Stick can catch him.  He plays the acoustics of the room to his advantage, finding places where the rattling caused by his tremors can’t be traced.  “Good!” Stick calls to him, slapping the cane aside when it comes to slap across his legs.  He dodges another attack and turns to face where Matt must be standing. 

            He’s tackled from behind. 

            What follows isn’t a clumsy brawl: Matt isn’t accommodating his left arm.  He isn’t relying on the rest of his body to pull him through.  He makes his tremor work for him.  Every punch lands in a different place than predicted, so Stick’s deflections are meaningless.  The old master gets back to his feet and is promptly beaten down again, his perception clouded by the tremor Matt uses to hide his actions. 

            Stick abandons finesse.  He grabs Matt by the shoulders and shoves him against the shelf.  There’s a loud snap like a bone’s being broken.  Stick hesitates, waiting for Matt’s agonized scream.  What he hears is the dry slap of rope unraveling, right before catching a fist to the mouth he never sensed coming.

            Matt’s right arm is free. 

            Beneath the low growl rising from Matt’s throat, Stick’s aware of the muscles contracting in the kid’s face.  He’s smiling.  The little shit is smiling. 

            Stick smiles with him, “Welcome back, Matty.”

            The fight continues. 

 

* * *

 

Happy reading!

           


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stick returns to a ravaged New York and encounters a peculiar feral. (Plays in the same universe as MomentumDeferred’s story [Sunshine.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4217547/chapters/9534300))

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All my thanks go to Ash. All of them. I get to play in her universe, and she graciously edits my chapters. Basically, Ash is amazing. All hail Ash. 
> 
> This chapter is some of the most fun I’ve ever had writing. I hope you enjoy it, dear Readers.
> 
> Make sure to check out her [SunshineVerse Tumblr](http://sunshineverse.tumblr.com/) as well as tj_teejay’s [Half-Feral Tumblr](http://half-feral.tumblr.com/) for more!
> 
> Timeframe: Shortly after Matt plateaus and the apartment is destroyed (re. Sunshine Chapter 3).

* * *

 

-Four-

 

“Are you ready for this?”  
  
            Usually, Stick wouldn’t ask, but Matt always did confuse wanting to be ready with actually being ready.  True, throwing the kid into the deep end of the pool appeals to Stick.  It’s kind of his specialty, actually: there’s no better cure for bright-eyed idealism than trying hard, failing miserably, and surviving.  But that was before a virus made Matt incapable of reality checks and an alien invasion made the planet a killing machine.  Failing miserably in the post-apocalypse means dying; Matt can’t learn a damn thing if he’s dead. 

            There’s no sense of idealism in Matt’s stance today though.  He is poised and certain, standing at the edge of the rooftop.  He doesn’t make a sound trying to answer Stick’s question, merely nudges his head towards his mentor.  Then his attention is fixed on a feral heartbeat echoing from the street below.  The rest of the pack is long gone.  This one’s a straggler, a reject.  Beaten and bloodied like Matt was back in the park.  The feral staggers along, dragging its foot, growling in a last-ditch effort to sound tough.   

            Stick’s already sick of listening.  “Rip its fucking throat out, Matty.”  
            And Matt is gone: off the roof, down the drainpipe, strafing across the windowsills like a spider.  Stick registers the motion from cuts and swipes in the air, not sound.  Only Matt’s heart is audible, and it beats at a rhythm just below a feral’s pace. 

            He lets out a small roar when he launches himself off the wall.  The feral’s answering growl is cut short by a collision with Matt.  The two hit the ground in a cloud of dust and limbs.  Stick minds the battle from above, smile broadening as Matt maintains his advantage.  The feral doesn’t have a chance in hell against Matt’s agility.  Blood sparks in the air reeking of infection and death but none of it belongs to Matt.  He isn’t the donor; he’s the taker. 

            Bone snaps – a wrist by the sounds of things.  The feral continues to fight with it anyways.  Matt dodges, kicks the feral to the ground, and then slams his heel into the feral’s spine until the vertebrae crunch. 

            The feral screams. 

            Further off, the pack stops moving.  Stick can hear their growls gaining volume.  Disappointment reigns that they couldn’t make this reject feral scream quite so well.  “Let’s go, Matty,” Stick murmurs, not in the mood to drag his over-confident charge, fresh from his first kill, out of a pack-brawl. 

            He taps his cane on the dilapidated brickwork surrounding the rooftop only to find -  surprise, surprise – Matt isn’t listening.  Not to Stick, not to the now approaching pack.  His attention is fixed on the feral whimpering on the ground under him.  He’s never gotten this far.  Neither has the pack, who will beat and beat and beat but are content to let the punching bag live to beat another day.  Matt kneels down towards the feral, a growl so low in his throat that Stick loses it beneath the rolling thunder of the approaching pack. 

            “Let’s go, Matty,” he urges, louder this time, because Matt’s heart is slowing back to a maudlin human crawl.  Stick unfolds his cane with a curse.  The kid was doing so fucking well to have his fucking empathy take over. 

            Stick drops onto the wall.  His feet hit the window sill with a crack of bone.  Matt roars above the din of the pack, and he stands triumphant over the body, daring them to come at him.  “Shit,” Stick does not want to fucking do this.  There’s about fifteen of the fuckers on their way.  “Get your dumbass out of there!” Matt snarls for Stick to come at him too.  He can take it all. 

            “Fuck,” Stick has half a mind to leave him there, but he’s moving closer to the ground without even thinking about it.  This isn’t a conscious decision on Matt’s part, after all.  It’s the fucking instincts: the same ones that let him break necks and take names have him facing down pretty certain death.  Stick gets to the road.  “Let’s go!  Cavalry’s coming, and I’m not in the mood for slashing down ferals today.” 

            Matt puffs and grunts, gesturing.  He won _this_.  This fight, this corpse, this space.  It’s his.  He fucking earned it.  Stick smacks the kid’s hands down and grabs a handful of Matt’s oily hair, “You ain’t won nothing.  Not yet, kid.  Nothing.  And if you don’t get moving, you won’t have a chance to.” More guttural argument.  Stick shakes him.  “Nothing.  That’s what this is.  Something is coming, Matty.  You’re going to fucking take it.  But not today.  Not today!” He yanks Matt out of springing into the direction of the charging pack.  “Today they’re going to see what you did, what you’re going to do to them.  That’s what you won, Matty: you won scaring the shit out of them.”

            It’s not quite as fun as getting to kill the shit out of them, Matt notes glumly in a series of growls, but it’ll do.

* * *

 

            The pack inspects their dead.  Stick listens.  They scour the hunting ground for the attacker but can’t agree on a direction, the scents leading to brick walls and dead ends.  Eventually, they toe the corpse, yank on its limbs, squabble over its parts. 

            The alpha takes the longest to abandon the hunt.  It stands for a long time in the street, gazing up and down the road.  It breathes deeply, searching for scents.  Stick minds that Matt stays away from the window.  They’re two blocks south of the corpse, close enough to be seen if the alpha were really looking. 

            Eventually, the alpha returns to its pack.  There’s little intelligence in its actions, only primal instincts.  A new predator is edging on its territory, one the alpha doesn’t understand.  Humans can’t kill ferals without weapons, and ferals don’t attack alone.

            Unless they’re an alpha. 

            Matt paces the apartment, growling.  First time ever he doesn’t head to the couch for a sixteen-hour coma.  The hunt fills him.  He quivers with excitement, itching to get back out there.  Take the rest of them and their swath of land instead of hiding here in the apartment listening to them tear at his kill.  Occasionally, he growls at Stick to let him go.  He points at Stick and to himself: you and me, let’s do this together. 

            “Patience,” Stick tells him, but it’s clear Matt doesn’t understand the word.  He follows the order with no conception of the reasons behind it. 

            His grumbling gets sharper when the flesh starts tearing.  The alpha is feeding the corpse to its pack.  Matt whimpers sharply, gesturing towards the slurping sounds of ferals feeding.  “That is my kill they’re eating.  Mine.  MINE.” 

            Stick shuts him up with what he thinks is simpler reasoning other than mere patience, “We go out there now, you don’t learn how to do this by yourself.”

            Matt stops dead in his tracks.  He doesn’t even breathe for several beats, the strength having drained from his chest.  His quivering takes on a new kind of energy, particularly around his bottom lip.  He whimpers.  He whines.  He shuffles tentatively towards Stick, sniffling.  The scent of salt water fills the apartment. 

            “Oh, hell,” doesn’t take Stick long to review what’s been said and how it set the kid off.  “You’re worried about being by yourself.” 

            Matt whines.  He doesn’t want it said.  It’s worse than the sounds of his kill being claimed by the other ferals.    

            Pack mentality, Stick tells himself with a sigh.  This is pack mentality and good ol’ Matt loyalty and all the time he spent alone, being beaten by humans and ferals alike, before Stick showed up.  “You’re not going to be by yourself,” Stick clarifies with a sigh.  “But you need to be able to take care of yourself.  You listen to those fuckers out there?  They depend on the alpha to protect them, to feed them.  You’re not like them, Matty.  You and me, we’re both alphas.  We’re a pack of alphas.  We protect each other, and we protect ourselves.  That’s our pack.  That’s how we survive.”

            That sounds okay to Matt, certainly better than the wrenching of muscle and cartilage going on outside.  He ceases his hapless whimpering, making a sound that agrees with Stick so long as no one’s going to get left behind. 

            “I’m here, Matt,” Stick hears his charge’s heartbeat pick up and dance around the room.  “I’m here and I’m not leaving.”

            Which is exactly what he always says to Matt before he leaves. 

* * *

 

            They run recon.  Matt whines.  Stick tells him to shut up.  “New lesson,” he declares, “You’re gonna kill smart, or you’re not going to kill at all.” 

            Matt only hears the word ‘kill’.  His whining vanishes, replaced by a low growl.  Stick catches himself smiling – actually smiling.  Jesus Christ, it’s the perfect second chance.  No more silk sheets or shit beer.  They’re past creature comforts and moral delusions.  This is Matt clarified, distilled; this is the Matt who could have been without his father’s ghost looming over him.  The end of the world finally gives Stick the student he always wanted and made Matt the warrior he always should have been.

            He pulls his hand off Matt’s shoulders, where it’s been resting without his realizing.  Matt nudges Stick with his elbow.  No time for sentiment, old man: they have a pack to take down. 

            The territory is loosely maintained through the city streets.  It’s the park the ferals really want.  They congregate around one of the entrances, and their high-powered heartbeats echo through the trees.  Matt sniffs, curious; he growls a question.  Stick agrees, “Why, indeed?” He casts a wider net with his hearing, past the actions of the pack, and hears an engine rumbling.  Idle chatter.  The faintest hint of gun powder is in the air.  “There are humans living in the park.  They must use that road for supply runs.” 

            Matt huffs another question, trying to understand.  Stick narrows his focus on the mission.  “We’re going to start out here, pick ‘em off one at a time, you understand?  Push ‘em back into the trees where they’ll have nothing to do but die.  Hey, listen up.”  Matt jerks out of his spell.  Stick grips his bicep, tugging him away from the sounds of civilization.  “The challenge will be getting to them before the humans do.  You understand, Matty?  The humans are going to try and kill ferals too, but they’re not as strong as you.”

            Nodding.  Huffing.  Stick can hear the pieces coming together in Matt’s head: ferals, bad.  Humans, weak.  Me, alpha.  But the heart rate retains its curious pitter-patter, and Stick can’t tell if it’s for understanding or belonging or, fuck, it’s Matt, so it’s probably both. 

            Stick whips his cane into a nearby alley, making sure it hits as much shit on the way down as possible.  Matt shoves Stick by the shoulder, because the orders were to be quiet and what the hell is Stick doing, throwing his cane?  But the kid hears the sudden charge of two ferals towards the alley, looking to investigate.  His heart thrills out of yearning into a battle pitch. 

            “What are you waiting for?” Stick asks.  Matt is already up and running.  “Go get ‘em.” 

* * *

 

            The fight is messier than the first.  Matt walks away with scratches on his chest and a bite on his shoulder, but he is learning.  He is learning so incredibly fast.  His bob and weave is perfectly adjusted to feral speed after training with Stick.  He uses his tremor to his advantage: dangling his arm as a distraction while his other limbs go to work or, even more impressively, locking a feral in a chokehold so he crushes the fucker’s windpipe with every spasm.  He acts in perfect silence too, so the ferals in the park don’t know two of their own are dying.  They won’t know until Matt wants them to, a lesson that Stick didn’t think stuck until hears the wet slaps of broken bodies being lain in the road.

            Blood and infected meat overpowers the smells left by both tribes, human and feral.  Stick creeps towards the edge of the roof, half-expecting to have to go after Matt again, but the kid is climbing out of harm’s way.  Stick senses his cane clamped in Matt’s jaw.  “Good kid,” Stick murmurs.  He’s surprised when Matt’s respiration doesn’t wind up in response to the praise.  The kid must not be listening. 

            Sure enough, Matt hesitates at the edge of the roof.  He takes Stick’s cane out of his mouth but doesn’t hand it back.  He lets it hang in his hand while he twists his head towards the park.  He reaches out with his senses – sniffing, listening.  His heart slips into that tremulous pace, that soft pawing sound of _want_ and _need_ for more than explanations.  He flicks his lower lip against his top row of teeth, breathing hard as he does.  The consonant sound that emerges is entirely new.  Stick’s never heard him use an F before. 

            “You did good, Matty,” He says, louder this time. 

            Matt snaps out of his trance.  He is only too proud to return the cane.  Bloody drool dangles off the impression of the kid’s teeth.  Stick makes a face, “Thanks.”  
   
           The kid’s grin is drenched in the blood of his enemies, and his feral heartbeat so loud from victory and praise that he can’t hear the humans in the distance.    

* * *

             The night is filled with the sounds of an agitated pack on the prowl and an even more agitated feral inside the apartment.  Twice now Matt’s killed and retreated, leaving the pack to reap his rewards, and to add insult to injury, he can hear them sniffling around the street-level of his building.  They’ve come on his turf, his territory, and he wants them gone.  He wants them all gone. 

            Stick has to hold Matt down.  No easy task, not with the virus fueling the kid’s muscles.  His instincts are in overdrive.  No amount of talking settles him.  He just points at the window and whines quietly, a pathetic mixture of wanting to kill them and the bitter unfairness of their being here.  And Stick can’t tell Matt he’s not ready without inciting an unstoppable lunge for the window.  He turns it into an ultimatum: go out now, get a street.  Wait, take the whole territory. 

            “Which’ll it be, Matty?  You want a piece or the whole pie?  Huh?” His hand slides over the back of Matt’s scalp like he’s about to grab his hair again, but Stick doesn’t this time.  He doesn’t have to.  The motion effectively derails Matt.  A sound emerges from the back of his throat, through the growling, low and soft like a purr.  He presses more tightly into Stick’s palm.  The old man accepts.  He digs his fingers through Matt’s ratty hair.  Better this than wrestling with a pissed-off feral. 

            They stay like that until the street clears.  By then, Matt is asleep, but Stick is wide awake.  He eases Matt onto the couch, but again, he doesn’t take his hand away.  He can’t, and for once, the thought doesn’t worry him. 

            This is the Matthew he always wanted, after all. 

* * *

             The next three ferals Matt kills are left in the streets, blocks apart from one another.  Stick gets closer to the action each time, but he finds he doesn’t have much to do.  Matt’s abilities are such that the strong can’t hit him and the quick can’t catch him.  He finishes them off without so much as a scratch, and he leaves the bodies for the ferals to find so they know what’s coming. 

            That night Stick doesn’t take him back to the car shop.  They lie low in an apartment overlooking the park entrance.  Dangerously close to the prowling ferals and their brutal alpha, but Matt insists.  He even musters the syllables ‘cah’ and ‘on’, which could be gibberish, or it could be a butchered version of the word ‘recon’.  Stick is content to think it’s the latter.  Realistically, the pack isn’t going to find them, not with their scent trail leading up to the rooftops.  If Matt wants to spend the night lording over the ferals, well, that’s what they’ll do.    

             The next day, Matt is up and at ‘em at first light.  “I’m comin’, I’m comin’…” Stick mutters, but he isn’t fast enough for Matt, who is on the apartment balcony, then the one below it, then the one below that.  It’s open season, and Matt wants to be the first hunter on the prowl. 

            Three ferals fall in a single, brutal brawl that nearly costs Matt his right arm.  He breaks free at the last minute, tearing out the jugular on one feral with his teeth before whipping around and breaking the others.  Wrists, knees, necks: the mangled feral’s corpse cuts the dusty breeze at odd angles.  “Jesus, Matty,” Stick marvels, releasing the handle of his katana.  He really thought this was going to be the fight to join in on, but training’s finally fucking over.  The student has become the master. 

            They hear a growl at the mouth of their alley.  Footsteps scuffle across the dusty ground.  A feral heartbeat churns erratically, giving way at last to an enraged roar. 

            Matt swipes a hand at Stick.  He snarls, tossing his head.  _You want him?_

            Stick gestures, “He’s all yours, Matty.”

            The smile.  The fucking smile – dripping with blood, reeking of feral flesh – disappears as quickly as it comes, and so does Matt, who tears off towards his next kill.  The feral at the mouth of the alley charges back, falling for the ruse.  It loses Matt at the last instant.  Ends up being dodged.  A foot slams against its back.  Its face hits the ground.  There’s more blood in the air than Matt’s mouth but not by much. 

            It’s over or, at least, it should be.  Matt grabs the feral by the hair and yanks it back.  The usual snap of vertebrae doesn’t follow.  Instead, there’s the scratch of fabric and flesh across the pavement, the frantic flailing of a body being dragged.  Matt is pulling his prey out of the alley, into the street, towards the stretch of feral heartbeats lingering outside the park. 

            “Oh, hell,” Stick chases him down.  Today is not the day for that.  He counts five more God damn ferals waiting in the park including the alpha.  And this is after Matt nearly lost a limb to three that he took by surprise.  Now he’s walking towards them, dragging one of their own, just itching to get torn apart. 

            He pulls out of Matt’s wake at the last minute.  Scales the neighbouring building and takes up position on the roof.  His katana rings out as it’s drawn, aching for a kill.  Stick knows the feeling.  He isn’t going to let these fuckers touch Matt, no matter how stupid Matt’s being. 

            They’re starting towards Matt, alright.  Stick hears them converge on the kid’s position, hissing and growling.  He eases himself over the side of the building, scaling the side until he’s back on the ground on a straight stretch to the feral mob.  They’ve stopped, but the alpha’s on the prowl now.  They’re waiting for the order to kill Matt. 

            The order isn’t coming.  Stick hears the alpha toeing the ground.  It wants Matt all to itself.  Stick decides he is only too glad to give the king zombie what he wants, to kill the little minions and let Matt claim that fucker for his own.  Stick dares the alpha to move, fanning his fingers around the handle of his blade.  This is a fight the alpha isn’t going to win. 

            Matt stands about fifteen yards from the ferals, his prey still struggling on the ground behind him.  He holds his position for a second, then releases the feral. 

            The motion is so swift that Stick can’t perceive it as it happens.  He has to piece it together amidst feet skidding across pavement, ferals growling and snarling; bones snapping and skin tearing.  In the milliseconds after he lets go of his prey, Matt dives down, grabbing the feral by the right arm.  He wrenches hard right and left.  The feral under him screeches.  Matt rolls it onto its front and snaps its right arm at the shoulder. 

            Then he’s kicking, biting, clawing, pulling, and the charging ferals have stopped their charge to watch.  What Matt’s doing, Stick can’t tell.  Not until the flesh finally gives.  Blood fills the air.  Tendons snap.  The rest of the pack shuffle back towards their alpha uncertainly.  This feral isn’t like them.  This feral is worse than them. 

            And in case they don’t quite understand it, in case it hasn’t sunk in that their alpha is not the one they need to worry about, Matt is suddenly shouting.  He gives one final yank on the arm of his captured feral, and the limb detaches.  The feral screams in agony on the ground under Matt’s foot.  Blood gushes out of its open shoulder.  Matt raises the arm above his head in horrible triumph and roars like Lucifer at the gates of heaven on the last day of his siege, right before his fall from grace.  The alpha answers with a roar of its own, but Matt interrupts him with another, louder this time, along with several threatening steps forward. 

            The remaining ferals in the pack scatter.  They growl, promising to get Matt next time, but they’re hoping there isn’t a next time for them, or if there is, that they’re not keening on the ground like that one-armed fucker, bleeding to death.  The alpha matches Matt’s steps in number but not in distance.  Even it’s giving pause to challenging Matt.  It must like its arms where they are. 

            Matt isn’t giving the alpha a choice.  He advances, tossing the arm to the ground as he does.  He’s about to get a new one.  A better one.  The alpha stops in its tracks and huffs, seeking reason or some equivalent thereof, but these are ferals.  They speak in menace, brutality, and violence of all kinds.  There’s no negotiations.  There’s attack or retreat; kill or be killed.

            Stick steps out from his hiding place, katana hanging at his side.  He won’t need it.  This alpha isn’t going to challenge Matt.  It’s lost the city, but it still owns the park.  Its minions are hissing at the border, urging their master to get away before they are left without a leader.  The alpha roars at them, then roars at Matt, and Matt responds like the devil he is: by running full-tilt at the alpha. 

            The alpha tears off into the park with its followers.  Matt lets it go.  He stands at the edge of the park in respect of the new borders, roaring at the retreating heartbeats to remind them who owns these streets.  Who took these streets by force, and who is coming to do the same thing to them. 

            He turns back to Stick, who can’t help but raise his katana slightly in the aftermath.  The scents and sounds of this Matt are alien.  The kid’s heartbeat is out of control.  He is rank with feral flesh.  His frame vibrates with excitement: for the kill, for the claim.  Stick’s presence isn’t calming him down; Matt’s getting wound up from the audience.  He sounds like an alpha. 

            “Matty,” Stick says, unable to help the pleading quality in his voice.  He can’t have lost the kid, not now.  “Matty, you there?”  
  
            Matt starts walking in his direction.  His every breath is another growl.  Stick can’t get his katana raised fast enough.  The kid is inches from him, huffing and puffing; he swipes a hand across his mouth, clearing away the blood.  Seems like an odd preamble to an attack, but Matt’s feral qualities haven’t let up.  Normally, he returns to a rather human baseline.  Stick can smell the adrenaline pumping through his muscles, can taste the virus with every breath.  And the kid is close enough now to bite him before Stick can deal a killing blow. 

            Which he almost does when Matt nudges his head forward.  Thankfully, Stick hesitates.  Matt’s mouth is shut, and he leads with his forehead, not his mouth.  He reaches for the back of Stick’s head and gently tilts the old master’s face down too, bringing their foreheads to rest together. 

            The contact fills Stick.  With what, the old man can’t say.  He’s struck dumb by the action.  There’s no context for it in their time together, no instinct that compels this kind of intimacy.  So Matt must have done this before Stick arrived.  Matt must remember being held like this, because he knows, on some level, this is the right response. 

            And if that’s true, he can’t have been alone since his infection.

            Stick raises his hand to the new scar on Matt’s cheek and runs a finger across it with new ideas.  Maybe it wasn’t bad aim.  Maybe the shooter missed on purpose. 

            Matt purrs from the touch.  His face twists into a grin.  He claps a hand on Stick’s cheek and shoulder.  His pack.  A pack of alphas. 

 

* * *

 

Happy reading!

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stick returns to a ravaged New York and encounters a peculiar feral. (Plays in the same universe as MomentumDeferred’s story [Sunshine.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4217547/chapters/9534300))

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I blame the gap between updates on this fic on a lot of things. The fact that it is the last chapter is a big reason. Conclusions are hard. Conclusions in the _Sunshine_ verse especially: they _hurt_. And I was not ready to face that. I wanted to leave Matt victorious with Stick looking on, proud but wary. 
> 
> I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Ash, the creator of this amazing verse, who beta-ed this fic into shape. Who gave me permission and support so many months ago to bring Stick into her beautifully rendered post-apocalyptic world. I count myself so lucky to have had the opportunity, not to mention the pleasure of her company. I hope you’ve enjoyed my brief foray into this world! Cheers!
> 
> Make sure to check out her [SunshineVerse Tumblr](http://sunshineverse.tumblr.com/) as well as tj_teejay’s [Half-Feral Tumblr](http://half-feral.tumblr.com/) for more!  
> Timeframe: Shortly after Matt plateaus and the apartment is destroyed (re. Sunshine Chapter 3).

-Five-

 

            They develop new routines in the weeks that follow, mostly based on Matt’s impulses.  Being King of the Street suits him just fine.  He allows the defeated alpha to stew with the remaining members of the pack in the park, passing the days with Stick mapping out the borders of their territory.  Lessons focus on finding provisions – food, clothing, drinking water - but they don’t take nearly as long as re-teaching Matt the basic concepts of mobility. 

            “Because you’ve done this before, haven’t you, Matty?” Stick wonders aloud after Matt leads them straight to a cache of canned goods four blocks away from their new home. 

            The kid tosses his head.  He understands the question, and the answer is ‘yes’, but he doesn’t remember.  He can’t remember.  Or maybe he simply can’t articulate what he remembers in words.

            One night, Stick rouses from meditation to find the kid’s gone.  Their new apartment, the one that overlooks the entrance to the park, the one strategically poised over the exiled alpha’s new terrain, is quiet, still.  No sounds of a near-comatose Matt flopped onto the couch.  Instead, there’s a faint pulse of life coming from floors above Stick.  Matt’s heartbeat paws anxiously at the roof, torn and desperate.  Further off, Stick hears the sounds of human carnage.  The ferals in the park are picking off another survivor, and they make as much noise as possible when tearing their prey to pieces. 

            Stick gets a fix on the kid, makes sure Matty isn’t about to do anything stupid.  They’ve had the Never Go Out At Night conversation dozens of times, and Matt’s barely abided.  He paces, his whines, he fits, until sleep cold-clocks him into a coma for sixteen straight hours.  And stupid as the ferals are, they have to know the new alpha on the block - the strange one who tore their pack apart – doesn’t play in the dark.  Now, he stands on a rooftop and listens to the wretched screams of the hapless human being dismantled.

            “Matty,” but the kid’s hearing is locked elsewhere.  Stick rises and makes his way out of the apartment, up the dilapidated stairs to the roof.  Matt’s pulse doesn’t change as Stick moves closer.  He is transfixed, lost in the wet bursts of ragged screaming, the splatter of blood, the faint whiff of entrails carried on the frigid breeze. 

            Matt’s heartbeat might be a fearful scratch inside his chest, a nervous pet torn between masters, but his body is poised to attack.  He clings to the edge of the rooftop on the verge of launching himself off.  The exertion makes him shake.  His jaw grinds.  A growl rumbles endlessly in the back of his throat.  Stick doesn’t touch him; no point in everything they’ve accomplished if he goes and gets himself bit now.  “Matty,” the old man tries again to pull the kid back.  “ _Matt_.”  
            He snaps out of it with a flick of his lower lip.  There’s that “F” sound again.  The smell of tears on his grimy cheeks.  His pulse flares into an all-too-human panic.  Because of the impulses he’s fighting.  Because he’s being mocked.  Because he doesn’t know where he is or why he’s there, only that his feet carried him onto the roof but won’t take him further.   

            “F-“ Matt chokes tearfully.  He scrubs at his cheeks.  Stick reaches for him, looking to lead him back inside, but the kid is already storming back down the stairs.  He is on the couch when Stick gets back to the apartment.  The screams come to a violent stop, but the kid doesn’t sleep.  He sits.  He waits for dawn. 

* * *

            First light.  Stick knows because Matt is clawing at the window, pacing around the kitchenette, growling and whining that the old man wakes up already.  They have ferals to hunt.  “Hold your damn horses,” Stick takes his time arming himself.  The kid’s stomach growls.  “Eat something, will you?  Got a long day ahead of us.”  
            Matt grumbles.  He brushes past Stick onto the balcony.  The only time he’s ever turned down a meal.  Or maybe he’s just hungry for something other than MREs and protein bars. 

            Stick packs food, water, hoodies.  All the necessary stuff the kid forgot on his mad tear out of the apartment.  No telling when they’ll be back with him this keyed up.  Stick then swings his satchel overhead, onto his shoulder.  He braces his katana and bounds off the balcony after Matt, who has already reached the street and is sprinting towards the park entrance.  The ferals are a long way off yet, but that shouldn’t be a cue for Matt to do anything stupid.  Stick is about to call to him when Matt veers left towards the fence, scales it, and leaps into the treetops.

            There is a sharp crack followed by a dull thud.  Stick hears scrambling – hands through dirt, bark ripping from the tree.  Char and woods and embarrassment waft through the fence rails.  “Gotta watch your step in the forest, Matty,” Stick says calmly as he climbs.  He ignores Matt’s whimpering and listens hard to the trees.  He finds a branch that sounds solid and hops to it, bowing over where he senses Matt trying to save face.  “You’re too used to the urban landscape.  Nature’s got its own way of speaking to you.  Gonna stand there all day and whine about it, or get your ass back up here and learn a few things?”

            Stick listens as Matt tries and fails to climb a tree.  He reclines on his haunches.  “You let me know when you’re ready.”

* * *

             Blood, sweat, and tears are heavy in the air by the time Matt reaches the canopy again.  He had to make a full circle of the area to find a branch low enough to grab.  He hoists himself up and hangs off the trunk of the tree for support.  His hand waves frantically to Stick.  “Come on,” he communicates through a series of grunts.  Stick lopes toward him and catches him by the wrist before he can move again.  He shoves the canteen into the kid’s right hand.  “Drink something, will yah?  And keep your God damn voice down.”  
  
            Matt makes a face and warbles his way through a crude parody of Stick’s vocal patterns before taking a drink.  “Smartass,” Stick cusses.  “You still want to go after them now?  They’re a long way off, and you wasted a lot of daylight.”

            The canteen flies towards his chest.  Stick catches it, returns it to his satchel.  Matt is lumbering slowly across the branch.  He jumps towards the next tree, finding yet another branch that won’t hold his weight.  But he’s quicker this time.  He nabs the trunk and swings over to a limb that can carry him. 

            “Smart,” Stick says appraisingly, falling back into step behind the kid.

* * *

            The kid’s not the only one who’s smart: turns out the ferals have learned a couple things too.  They know to keep moving, to split up and converge, split up and converge, leaving Matt to decide where to follow.  They start heading as far away from the street as they can before darting south and doubling back.  Stick gives them credit for the strategy.  Eventually, Matt is going to give up or be forced to spend the night in the park, and even if that doesn’t give them an advantage, it levels the playing field against this irregular alpha who is hunting them.  

            Stick lets Matt make the mistake of following them.  He trails mutely as the kid gets led to nowhere.  He listens to the growing sounds of frustration, senses Matt overheating before engaging in a fistfight with a tree because _this isn’t right_.  This isn’t right or fair or just.  These ferals don’t get to outrun him after insulting him so thoroughly last night.

            Evening comes.  The temperature drops.  No point in heading back to the apartment.  Stick pulls out a hoodie and tosses it to Matt.  He makes no effort to catch it.  Lets it fall straight to the ground.  “Fine,” Stick puts his own sweater on and gets comfy.  “Freeze.”

            Matt growls something along the lines of, “I will.  I’ll freeze better than anyone else.”  And he gets comfy on his own damn tree. 

            Less than an hour later, Stick hears whimpering.  Matt shudders against his tree trunk cold and disappointed.  The ferals weave a wild path away from them, unable to hunt without a scent or sound to track.  They make as much noise as possible, trusting that Matt is near, that he can hear them, lords of night.  He isn’t doing much listening, though, being as cold as he is. 

            Not until human voices appear.  They’re quiet, conversational.  Two survivors patrolling a fence a way’s off in the park.  A man and a woman.  Their smell is faint through the trees.  Blood, obviously.  Soap, surprisingly.  Alcohol, most definitely.    

            Stick abandons the conversation.  The woman sounds tired; the man sounds distracted, detached.  _Searching_.  For something other than ferals along the fenceline.  For Matt?  The kid seems to think so.  He’s gone still save for his tremor.  Then all of a sudden he’s descending, headed towards the forest floor.

            The hell is he doing?  Kid doesn’t seem to know.  He gets to the ground and releases three guttural huffs.  Whatever they’re supposed to accomplish, they don’t.  Matt growls, doubling back in frustration, but he whips away from the base of the tree and tries again: three huffs, louder this time around.  Another failure.  To talk, Stick realizes.  The kid’s trying to talk.  He’s forcing breath through his mouth as hard as possible, waiting for it to catch on his tongue or teeth or cheeks, waiting for words to emerge as easily as they used to.             

            And when that doesn’t work, Matt goes silent for a long time.  Stick hears him bite on his lower lip to stop it from shaking before he exhales.                

            “F-“ Matt shivers with renewed vigor.  He sniffles wetly.  Salt water wafts up to Stick in the canopy.  “F-f-f-f-f-“

            He takes one step, then another, in the direction of the settlement. 

            Stick swings down to the forest floor.  He grabs the hoodie Matt dropped earlier on a dash to catch the kid before he goes any further.  “Matt.”  Stick struggles to hold onto him.  The voices are a stronger siren’s song than the feral shouts behind them.  “Matt, come on.  Come back to me.”  Stick offers his forehead the way the kid taught him to, and while Matt takes momentary comfort in that, he can’t stop.  He has to go, and his only explanation is that F- sound over and over.

            It’s a symptom: must be.  The virus has finally chewed up the last reasoning parts of Matt’s brain.  They’ve entered the downhill stretch.  But Stick catalogues his temperature, his heartrate, his motions, and none of them seem unusual except they’re leading Matt in the wrong direction.  Towards the humans instead of towards the ferals. 

            Stick grabs Matt by the scalp and forces their foreheads together.  “Can’t leave me now, Matty.  Gotta stick together.  Pack of alphas, remember?  Pack.”  Matt whimpers, wrenching his head towards the humans.  “F-“  Stick holds fast.  “Pack, Matty.  Can’t leave your pack.”

            Matt’s head jerks.  Stick thinks he’s trying to get away, but the action gets repeated.  He’s nodding; the kid’s nodding.  Stick releases him, shoving the hoodie into his chest.  “Put that on.”  More nodding, order following.  Matt’s pulse nosedives in exhaustion.  Stick gives him a gentle push in the direction of the tree.  They’ll talk about this in the morning when Matt isn’t slipping off branches. 

            Stick takes him by the hand to guide him up to the highest branch.  Matt bows under the weight of what’s just happened.  He growls towards the ferals – fuck them, this is all their fault – and slowly settles into sleep.  Stick catches him by the shoulder before he falls off the branch.  There’s no time for a lesson on maintaining muscle control during sleep.  Stick’s not even sure Matt’s viralled brain is capable of holding him up like that.  Instead, he offers his shoulder.  Yeah, his shoulder.  Two grown-ass men sleeping in a tree, holding each other through the night.  Christ, if only his pre-apocalypse self could see them now. 

            The kid isn’t listening.  Stick knocks his head twice to his left to get Matt’s attention, but the only move the kid makes is with his trembling arm.  His heart enters that hunting rhythm, believing Stick’s pointing out ferals moving into the area.  Stick sighs: always one step forward, two fucking steps back with this one.  He raises his arm and gestures for Matt to move towards him, not away.  “Come here.  Get over here before you fall.”

            The kid makes his characteristic growls and grunts.  Of confusion, first and foremost, but Stick can also make out Matt’s grudges, his knowing-better.  This is a trick, a test, one he intends to pass.  Besides, Matt grumbles, nearly pitching off the branch again, he can sleep on his own. 

            Stick taps Matt on the arm, “Would you get your ass over here?”

            Matt tosses his shoulders.  “If you insist.”  But the way his heart goes into overdrive tells Stick that this is how sleeping arrangements are going to be for the rest of the apocalypse.  He dives against Stick’s chest like it was made for him, like he belongs there, like he has done this a thousand times before with somebody else.

            The hot, living pressure of a full grown feral pinning him to the tree trunk is almost too much.  Stick fights the urge to wake Matt up and drag his near-comatose ass to the ground where they can have separate sleeping arrangements.  But Matt is in one of his deep sleeps again, ear pressed tightly over the slop beneath Stick’s shoulder.  A veritable Ganges of drool flows through Stick’s hoodie and shirt to his ribs.  The kid holds him in a clumsy lock that proves he can hold himself up while sleeping, so long as he has something worth holding on to. 

            A usual litany of reminders run through Stick’s brain.  This is the sickness.  This is  a symptom of the same disease that gave him such a fine fucking soldier.  Being used as a God damn teddy bear is a small price to pay for all the hell they’re gonna raise together. 

            This is also the first time since the world ended that Stick feels warm.                        

* * *

            The hunt takes on a different tone in the morning.  Matt is sputtering.  Not from exhaustion; he wakes renewed, grounded, having reclaimed something last night that he thought he lost.  It’s the target of his hunt that makes him waver.  The ferals are sleeping, but instead of pressing the advantage, Matt pauses for long periods of time on their trek through the park throughout the day.  Stick has to call him to get him back on track. 

            Even when they finally come down on one of the ferals, the fight lacks Matt’s usual energy.  He ends it quickly, and then he stands for a long while, basking in the faint signs of human life from behind them. 

            Tenuous.  The word occurs to Stick their second night in the park, when he awakens, chest under siege.  Matt folded over him like a God damn seatbelt, and Stick’s first instinct is to shirk the kid off him before remembering that this is their life now. 

            So he sits there, a mattress for his protégé-turned-partner, and Stick meditates on tenuousness.  On fragility.  He considers the years that he has known Matt and his long-held belief that they were a doomed relationship from the start.  That they’re a fortress built on sand.  They’ve got more fault lines under them than fucking California, and eventually, they and everything between them is going to crumble into the ocean. 

* * *

             “Matt.”

            He is doing that thing again.  The standing around, listening to the humans, his pulse oscillating between an inability to remember but the knowledge that he does, damn it.  Meanwhile, the alpha and his remaining ferals are getting further away, and Stick’s running low on rations.  He didn’t plan for them to be hunting this long.

            “Covered a lot of ground, Matty.  Got a lot of new territory to call yours.”

            Matt can’t hear him.  His head tilts in the direction of an engine rumbling. 

            “This about sightseeing or about payback?” Stick asks aloud.  He thought it was about the latter.  The park-ferals had gone and rubbed Matt’s nose in how helpless he was, stuck in his apartment at night.  But Stick goes cold upon realizing that maybe it wasn’t the ferals Matt was chasing. 

            It was the screams.  The victim.  The human.  Deep down, that’s what it’s always been about.  Matt standing on a rooftop, listening to a person wailing for help.  He isn’t torn between safety and the hunt.  He isn’t confused about being an alpha or a beta.  He is struggling between who he was and who he is becoming.  Who Stick is forging him into.

            Stick takes a step back, “God damn it, Matthew.” 

            The sound of his given name snaps Matt out of his daze.  He knocks his head in the direction of the ferals, ready to give chase.  “Go on and get ‘em,” Stick says.  Matt hums a question – “Aren’t you coming?” – but the old man shakes his head.  “Gonna sit this one out.  You go.  I’ll be here when you get back.”  
            Matt claps Stick on the shoulder and runs, eager to prove himself. 

            Stick lets him go. 

* * *

 

            He follows the chase from the treetops.  Matt seems back to usual form, racing quickly towards his prey.  The ferals divide; he stays on target, pursuing the alpha and allowing the little ones to go free.  However, he suddenly gets distracted.  The engine is back.  The gates to the settlement are opening.  Humans are heading out on a supply run.             “Don’t do it, Matty,” but Stick can already hear it happening.  Matt’s footsteps skidding into the earth.  His harsh whimpers as the alpha escapes him.  The sudden thrust of his respiration as he heads towards the truck. 

            But he doesn’t go near the humans.  He isn’t after them.  He’s after the small feral, the one who broke away from the alpha.  The one making a beeline for the truck and the humans inside. 

            There’s the violence that was lacking in their last kill.  There’s the intensity.  Stick waits for Matt’s alpha roar, his show of dominance.  It never comes.  The truck passes by, its occupants none the wiser of what’s taken place.  And Matt slips back through the forest in perfect silence, dragging the corpse of the feral out of the humans’ sight. 

 

* * *

          

            “The hell were you thinking?”

            Matt says nothing.  He doesn’t have to: his pulse says it all.  No longer the furious, mindless pounding of a feral on the hunt.  His heart rate has gone straight to hell.  It’s returned to its devil rhythm.  That self-righteous march of beats.  Like a churchbell ringing in his chest. 

            Stick groans.  He hated that fucking devil before the world went to shit.  He _really_  hates the devil now.  Got no place here at the end of everything.  “Those people have weapons, Matty.  You remember what weapons are?  They could have taken that feral down.  They could have taken you down.  And even if they couldn’t, the hell are they to you?”  
            Still nothing.  Matt cocks his head to the side defiantly, and for once, he’s unreadable.  Unknowable.  A pack unto himself. 

            “We’re leaving,” Stick pats his satchel.  “No more food, no more water.  The alpha’s long gone thanks to your dumb ass.  You want to wage war for the park, you do it when you’re ready, not when you’re busy playing tug-of-war with yourself.”  He starts to walk away.  “And what the hell was that all about –hiding the body?  Nothing they haven’t seen before.”

            Stick stops.  Waits.  The only set of footsteps is his.  Matt hasn’t moved from his spot.  “C’mon, Matty,” Stick waits for that feral heartbeat to come back to him.  The need to appease has always run strong with Matt.  The old man gestures with his head, “Come on.”

              Matt presses his toes into the earth on one foot like he’s coming with, but he digs his heel in the ground on the other because he isn’t going anywhere.  He releases a long, steady growl, one he’s been holding for a while.  Mournful, polite, but firm: he’s staying. 

            “You don’t have to stay out here for this to be your territory,” Stick reminds him, but the way Matt shifts his weight from foot to foot suggests that isn’t his reason at all.  The kid’s nervous.  So he isn’t staying for any reason Stick can predict or the virus might compel.  “You’re staying for them.”  Another shift, even more nervous.  Matt quivers with embarrassment though his heart marches a steady course.  Stick laughs, “You’re staying for the humans.”  
  
            God, he can understand Matt’s garbled nonsense: “These are good people,” and, “I need to protect them,” and, “This is my city.”  Stick stops him before he can go on, “Shit, Matty.  Can’t talk.  Got a bum left arm and a brain turning to soup.  Don’t remember a God damn thing, but you still want to protect people.” 

            Matt’s voice takes on a dangerous edge – “You’re out of line, old man” – but he stands his ground. 

            “Listen to me,” Stick continues.  He places a hand on his katana just in case Matt takes that as a cue to charge.  “The world’s over.  The city’s destroyed.  Those people over there?  They’re the last of a dying breed.  Soon to be extinct.  Aliens, ferals, draining resources: they’re all gonna die, Matthew.  And you can’t save them.”  Stick drives his point a little deeper and gives it a big twist by adding, “You can’t save yourself.”  
            Matt still doesn’t move.  God damn it, Stick forgets how little regard he has for himself. 

            He tries a new tactic.  A worse one. 

            “They don’t want you, Matthew.”

            That earns Stick something: a whine, soft, caught in the back of Matt’s throat.  The old man nabs hold and peels it out of Matt inch by agonizing inch.  “You’re nothing more than a feral to them.  And you know it!  That’s why you didn’t get close to the truck today, why you hid the body.  You know exactly what they’ll do to someone like you.  What, you think they’re gonna let you on their side of the fence?  That they’ll let you be one of them?”

            The whine gets louder and longer and Matt’s face is crumbling.  Stick advances, “You are alone, Matty.  I’m the only pack you’ve got, and I’m the only pack you’ll ever have.  So come on.” 

            Stick gestures for Matt to follow, and for a moment, it seems like the kid might.  He extends his right leg forward.  His whole body shakes from the exertion, wanting to go, needing to stay.  And he steps back into position.  He scrubs at his face, strengthening his resolve to grunt declaratively.  “I’m staying.” 

            “Matt.”  
  
            Another grunt, louder this time:  “I’m staying.”

            Stick raises his hands in mock defeat, “Fine.”  He walks away.   

            The softest of whines emerges in his wake, followed by a gasp.  Matt’s heartbeat spirals out of control.  Stick maintains his pace, “I’m leaving.”  More whimpering.  A soft cry breaks against Matt’s lips.  He shuffles in his place unsteadily, lost and getting more lost by the second, but his legs refuse to move.  Stick tightens his hand on his katana and marches forward.  “God speed, Matthew.” 

            Matt lets out a loud, anguished cry.

            Stick bites down hard on his lower lip.  He feels the alien sun glare down on the good side of his face.  A tear ekes out of his remaining eye; he swipes it away.

            He hears Matt sobbing behind him, and he holds onto the sound all the way out of the park into the ruined city.   

 

* * *

 

Fin


End file.
